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When a terrorist attack on the White House sees the President taken hostage and all secret service agents wiped out it is left to Mike Banning who was a former presidential guard to save the day.
I have to admit that I was quite confused with the start of the film and how this was going to lead to the White House being attacked but it didn’t take long to make perfect sense. We needed a bit of back story on Mike, the opening sees the First Lady dying in a car crash after Mike saved the President first. This lead to Mike being moved to the treasury as the President no longer wanted him around. This also impacts his son Connor who got on very well with Mike.
I think this back story was very important as it helped to give the characters more depth and made the audience care a bit more about them. When the attack hits the White House, the scenes really were very impressive. The action throughout the film was very good overall, with the fight scenes being very good as well. I think the fact that Mike carried so much about Connor that he had to find him made it seem more personal really.
Seeing the White House being blown apart really was strange to watch especially seeing the film days after the bombs in Boston and that being labelled as a terrorist attack. So watching a film about a terrorist attack and the president being taken hostage was a little odd, but as a film it really was entertaining and had you really hoping that everything was going to work out well in the end, or as well as it could have been.
I enjoyed how Morgan Freeman became the acting president as let’s face it he can carry off that role. Aaron Eckhart was very good as well, even though he did spend a lot of time tied up! But obviously it was left to Gerard Butler to really keep the film going and be the key character who we quickly grow to like and even care about it. I would say he was very Bruce Willis in Die Hard! Nothing was going to stop him in that building! A slightly different role for him to take on as well showing that he can do pretty much anything and still look very good. I have become quite a fan of his over the years and this film has only made that grow.
I found myself really feeling sorry for Mike’s wife as she had no idea where he actually was and had no way of contacting him when the mobile phone network went down, this might seem like a very trivial thing to comment on but she wasn’t really speaking to him before she left for work so it did make a bit of a thinking point for the film. Especially when she was in the hospital with many victims needing attention.
Overall, I really thought this was such a good action film which you cared about the characters and really wanted to see justice given to Kang in the end as he really was evil (which was down to some very good acting). As the audience you wanted him to be brought down as he was just sadistic at times. A slight warning that some scenes are very violent as well, just incase you don’t like that type of thing but you probably wouldn’t give a film like this a watch anyway. I would happily watch this film again!
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
